“No!” she said, an instant too late. The hammer dropped into the sink of soapy water.
“What happened?” Darlene said, turning around. Ignoring her, Ellie hurried over to the sink and pulled out the hammer. She didn’t know if the soap would destroy whatever DNA evidence there was.
“It’s fine,” Adam said, chuckling. “That old thing could probably use a good cleaning anyway.”
The smile slipped off his face when he saw the way that she was looking at the hammer. Her eyes kept darting between him and the murky brown stains on the handle’s wood. She couldn’t help it. Her mother might have just destroyed the only evidence linking Adam to Kenneth’s death.
“I’ll take that,” Adam said. Reflexively, without thinking about it, she jerked away from him.
“Ellie, what are you doing?” her mother asked. Ellie felt her phone buzz in her pants pocket, but ignored it. There was no way she could take a call right now.
“Give it here,” Adam said, holding his hand out. His normally friendly tone was gone. He sounded threatening.
“Ellie, for goodness sake, hand him the hammer. He doesn’t care that it got wet. Why are you so weird about things sometimes?”
Ellie ignored her mother’s annoyed tone. She met Adam’s eyes, and she could tell that he knew. He knew that she knew. The stains on the hammer weren’t dirt or paint. They were blood.
He lunged for the hammer just as she stepped back, and missed it by inches. Her phone was buzzing again. It was probably Russell. With any luck, he would be worried enough to drive back out to the pizzeria. They could use his help.
She heard her mother and Darlene exclaim, but didn’t know what they had said. Her attention right now was only on the man in front of her.
“Why did you do it?” she asked, putting the hammer behind her body.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“You’re the only one who could have done it,” she said. “It’s been driving me crazy for so long, but now everything adds up. You must’ve killed him here, and he made it back to the car before you could stop him. You had to wipe the vehicle clean of blood and your fingerprints, then you drove his body to the marina in your own truck and dumped him.”
“Ellie, just give him the stupid hammer.” Just like usual, her mother hadn’t heard a thing that she had said. She reached for the hammer that was hidden behind her daughter’s back. Ellie jerked away, edging along the wall away from both her mother and Adam. Darlene was watching with her eyes wide. Ellie hoped that she would make the connection soon. She could use someone on her side.
“Why did you do it?” she asked. “That’s what I don’t understand. I mean yes, there were times that I wanted to bash his face in myself, but that’s because I knew him, and I was engaged to him. You had never seen him before in your life.”
“It was self-defense, okay?” he said, his face going red. “The guy was crazy. I was standing outside on my smoke break when he approached me. He kept calling me by some other name, and seemed to think that I had stolen his girlfriend. He came at me and shoved me, and I hit him with the closest thing to my hand. I didn’t mean to kill him, but self-defense is perfectly legal.”
In the dark, Kenneth must have thought that Adam was Russell. He had already been angry when he left the sheriff’s department, and when he thought Russell had followed him, he must have snapped. Why had he been at the pizzeria in the first place? It was on the way home, she realized. He had probably just stopped there to cool down before returning to the Pacelli house.
Ellie’s mother was staring at Adam now, her jaw slack. She had finally realized that they were talking about something important. Darlene, standing behind Adam, had her hands to her mouth.
“Yeah, but dumping a body in the ocean isn’t,” Ellie said. She bit her lip, realizing that she had said enough. They had gotten a confession. That would be enough, wouldn’t it be?
“Give me my hammer,” Adam growled.
Ellie realized that she had backed herself into a corner – both figuratively and literally. Where could she go from here? If she gave Adam his hammer back, not only would she be giving away evidence, but she would also be handing him a weapon that he might use to hurt them. Would they be able to get him to leave without the hammer? She didn’t think that was very likely either.
“Darlene?” she said, her voice shaking. “Can you please call the police?”
Adam turned around. “Don’t pick up your phone,” he said. Darlene froze, quailing under his glare.
“Don’t threaten her,” Ellie’s mother said, edging between him and Darlene. “And don’t threaten my daughter.”
Ellie saw something in Adam’s eyes that frightened her. A trapped look. He was cornered, and he knew it. His gaze fixated on the knife block, and she saw resolve flash across his face.
Her mother must have seen the same thing, because she moved again, this time between him and the counter.
“Get out of my way,” he said. “I don’t want to hit a woman.”
He took a step toward her, and Donna shoved him back. His fists clenched, and Ellie tightened her grip on the hammer. She didn’t want to, but if she had to, she would use it.
The tension in the room was broken when someone knocked at the employee door. Darlene, who was standing closest to it, reached for the handle.
“Don’t move,” Adam snapped, making her jump. He lunged forward, reaching for her arm, but Ellie’s mother got in the way, slapping him off of her.
“Open it!” she exclaimed.
Darlene pulled the door open just as Ellie moved forward, sticking a foot out to trip Adam as he backpedaled away from her mother. He crashed to the floor, and Ellie looked up to see Russell standing in the doorway.
EPILOGUE
* * *
Ellie had said goodbye to her mother many times over the years, but had never been so sad to see her go as she was now.
“Are you sure you won’t be able to make it to Kenneth’s funeral?” her mother asked again.
“I’m sure,” Ellie said. “With Christmas coming up, it’s just going to be too busy. Besides, I don’t think I would feel very comfortable going. He was my ex, and for good reason. Him being dead doesn’t change that.”
The older woman nodded sadly. “Well, I’ll see you in February. I can’t wait to see you walk down the aisle in that dress.”
“Let’s just hope that I don’t gain a thousand pounds from stress eating beforehand,” Ellie said. “I’ll miss you, Mom.”
“I’ll miss you too, sweetie.”
They embraced. Pulling back, Ellie asked, hesitantly, “Why didn’t you come into the pizzeria on Monday?”
“I came to apologize to you,” she said. “But then I saw you through the window. You looked so happy and peaceful. You never look like that around me, and I didn’t want to wreck it.”
Ellie felt her eyes prickle with tears. “We really need to talk more. And actually listen to each other more, too. Call me when you get home, okay?”
“I will,” her mother promised. They had time for one last hug, then Ellie watched the older woman walk down the front steps and get into her car. She hated the thought of her mother driving back to Chicago on her own, but with the vehicle here, she couldn’t exactly fly back.
Once the car was out of sight, Ellie went back inside, Bunny following her like she always did. Darlene was in the living room, watching a show on the television with Marlowe perched on the back of the old armchair. She was eating popcorn, and occasionally reached over to give the bird a piece.
Ellie walked past them, smiling. She liked that the house wasn’t empty again quite yet. It was nice to have some company – nicer that she would have thought. She and Russell would be just fine, she was sure of it. After all, they had already gone through so much together. Compared to facing down killers, living together should be easy as pie.
rder (Papa Pacelli's Pizzeria Series Book 19)
Thanksgiving Pizza Murder (Papa Pacelli's Pizzeria Series Book 19) Page 7